Posted 09/22/09 at 08:12:42 AM by Paul Lilly

If you've ever dreamed about owning a supercomputer, SGI has your back. During the Intel Developer Forum (IDF) that kicked off today and runs until Thursday, SGI introduced what it describes as a "personal supercomputer" called the Octane III. More than just marketing hype, the Octane III comes ready to accommodate up to 80 high-performance cores and just shy of 1TB of memory.

"This new product takes high-performance computing to a new level by combining the immense power and performance capabilities of a high-performance deskside cluster with the portability and usability of a workstation," SGI said in a statement. "The Octane III is uniquely suited for workplace environments and supports a vast range of distributed technical computing applications."

The Octane III will ship with a pre-installed platform with support for several HPC applications, including fluid dynamics, quantum mechanics, molecular dynamics, CAD, and a bunch of other geeky stuff that has nothing to do with running Crysis or gaming in general.

Cost of entry will start at around $8,000.

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Posted 11/20/08 at 05:48:24 PM by Andy Salisbury

While Intel’s Atom processor is meant for low-power demand machines, such as netbooks, it’s found a new use with a not-so-likely candidate – a supercomputer.

Silicon Graphics (SGI) has started exhibiting a new concept for a supercomputer that could pack almost 10,000 Intel Atom processors into one rack. SGI is planning to name it the Molecule.

The Molecule could reportedly offer the horsepower and memory bandwidth of more than 750 high-end desktop PCs, and consume only half the power. It would also occupy a meager 1.4 percent of the physical space.

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